15" MacBook Air | developer's dream 

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I've been using my 16" M1 Pro model for development work for the past year and a half, but recently got the 15" Air so that I have 1 device for home, and 1 for work (to seperate them out). I develop all sorts, so Java Maven, SQL Server, Web, C# etc and was worried that the M2 wouldn't be enough. However it feels just as quick as my M1 Pro and i really cannot tell the difference. I prefer the design of the 15" Air as its just so light! I can use it on my lap anywhere and hold it up with one hand on its corner. I went with 16Gb 256Gb, the 'slower' storgage didn't effect me at all due to my small file sizes I work with, and I got 16Gb to avoid swap. Boom, perfect work laptop

Although the Base models of the Air are pretty good deals (the 15” for $100 more is probably better), the difference in cost between the 14” Mac Pro and an Air with 16Gb and 512Gb SD is only $300. The weight is practically the same and the screen is an inch smaller, but the mini led screen is higher resolution, brighter and has 120hz ProMotion. It has much better speakers and mic, way more ports (card slot, usb-c, hdmi), but most importantly 50% more performance CPU cores, 60% more GPU cores, and twice the memory bandwidth. For a developer who needs the extra memory, the Pro makes a lot more sense.

as one of those guys that uses the command pallet for everything i hiiiighly recommend moving the menubar to the left side of the screen ( so it does not interfer with right side scrolling) minimize its size and auto hide it. when you maximise a window it will now fill the entire screen and hitting cmd shift (i first replaced spotlight with alfred and now with raycast) is as fast as if not faster than alt tabbing to switch between windows

Thanks for your decent work! Just starting to discover what you've done so far.

Developer's perspective is really interesting; thanks! I'm shooting for retirement in a couple years or so, and probably start working on some iPhone app ideas that've been rattling around the back of my cranium for a few years! I picked up a 16" M2-Max MBP recently. I'm amazed how much performance it has for a laptop. Heck, how much performance it has for _any kind_ of machine! I know it's beneath it's 12-CPU, 38-GPU dignity, but it's also one heck of a movie-watching machine too: Amazingly "spatial" speakers and high-contrast screen!

Alex, your tests are the best! Thank you!

Love your videos for it gives the true developer insights and most of the questions you answer matches well with my curiosity. 👨🏻‍💻

Your tests were pretty much exactly my day-to-day. Thank you!

I always appreciate these comparison tests.thanks👍🏻

I keep coming back to the 14" Pro as my likely upgrade. The Air is nice but while I don't always need the power the Pro line can offer, I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I'll be upgrading from a 13" Pro from 2014 so anything is going to be better, but the overall size and features, to me, make it the absolute sweet spot for power and portability.

was waiting for 15" review. It was Worth the wait. 🔥🔥

Finally a real software developer review. Most other reviews are from people who just follow tutorials. Thanks!

Awesome review Alex. This is the one I’ve been waiting for! Waiting patiently for mine to show up.

Thank you for the review ! as usual 🚀🚀🚀

The review I was waiting for 🔥

Perfect review! You answered all of the questions I had that other reviewers completely skimped over!

YES SUPER GLAD someone made this kind of video. This was my concern, that they don’t have a fan.

Hello, Alex! That was a nice video, thanks for sharing the developer's point of view. It would be nice to see the real-world comparison of 16/512 Air 15 with MacBook Pro 16 m2 pro. It seems that this Air could be the ideal replacement for web developers who need bigger screens, but don’t need the power of MacBook Pro.

Alex, your reviews and tests helped me a lot in choosing my MacBook! Thanks!

I'm sitting watching this on my new MBA 15"....Love it !

Requirements highly depend on what kind of development you do. I used to have a 1TB SSD MacBook at Unity and it was always running out of space. I had to download several big customer projects and checkout multiple branches of big repos (with lot of git LFS data). Since then 2TB has been my SSD minimum requirement. For memory, some performance profiling (sampling) tools I use become unresponsive with only 16GB RAM, so 32GB is my minimum for memory. When compiling big C++ code bases, you want good CPU performance. Saving 10 mins daily pays back the whole device in less than 1 year. 14” M3 Max weight is only 6% more than 15” Air. But the performance is in different ballpark.

MacBook Air 13" (16 GB/512 GB) will do almost everything. And I'm always using a secondary screen. I do basically backend work. I'm currently using a 16" M1Pro from the company, but portability is terrible for me. I'll go for it as my personal machine. Thanks for the review.

This is why at the time of M1, I preferred MBP over MBA, despite being a fan of the MBA design. I did not want to bet on CPU ventilation and have the full performance to support my work.

I wanted to thank you for your video. It really helped me decide which device to choose. Currently, I'm a software developer and I'm planning to upgrade my current setup. I have two options in mind: 1. MacBook Air 15" with an M2 chip, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 24GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. 2. MacBook Pro 14" with an M2 Pro chip, 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. At the moment, I'm not using any docker containers or virtual machines, but I might start using them in the future. I'm also planning to learn AI and ML, so having some capability in that area would be beneficial. Here are my specific queries: 1. I feel like the MacBook Pro 14" might be overkill for software development. 2. I live in India, where temperatures can reach 30-35 degrees Celsius, and I'm concerned that the fanless design of the MacBook Air might cause issues. 3. I'm planning to use the laptop for at least 5 years or more. I would greatly appreciate your suggestions on which option would be best for my needs.

Great video 👏 thanks!

Looking forward to watch your video on the 16GB RAM model Alex!

With an aluminum body, they are using the shell as part of the heatsink. Bigger aluminum body with more surface area should mean better cooling.

It’d be very interesting to see the real world differences between a 15” Air with 512gb/24gb and the base 14” Pro with 512gb/16gb. I’m mainly interested in how Windows on Parallels and Docker perform on these 2. Here in Canada they are priced exactly the same.

underrated channel😮 so amazing review

THX for this "firsttimeisaw" :-) completely clear and great review. Just what i needed now. Developers point was most important for me. I am running to the store now . Keep up the good work!

I usually just go to work, plug in to a monitor, come home and plug in to a monitor, but considering the m1/2 only supports 1 monitor I think the 15" is nice!

Very meticulous and detailed tests as usual Alex! I am convinced by your tests that the 15" Macbook Air is the better choice. I will definitely get one as soon as it becomes available in PH. Thanks!

Would like to see more docker/containers to fully understand if 16gb is good enough for budget reasons. Or still need to go 24gb.

Keep those beats going!! 🎧

If it supported 32GB ram, I would call a dream too.. Your tests were pretty much exactly my day-to-day. Thank you!.

You can also download a screen resolution tool and get a lot more lines than that

Would love to see side by size comparisons of Xcode, especially with the canvas/live preview open. Would be good to see Xcode open with another app like safari open in Split View/side by side

Great comprehensive review, I'd love to a see a comparison between the 15 inch m2 16gb of ram vs the base model 16 mbp m2

Great Review !

Yes, please compare the 8GB vs 16GB 15" Airs. Xcode + iOS simulator compile and cold start times.

Fantastic comparison! I already have a 14" MBP M1 Max for the 64GB, but at $4K I feel a tad uncomfortable traveling with it! I might pickup a 13" Air w/ 24GB if I get enough business income to pay for it. I have been really happy with the 14" form factor, especially with portability at home (I roam a lot). Going to 13" screen is a noticeable step down, but a good trade off for traveling in my personal situation. Thank you!

The screen on the MBP 16” is just like night and day different… Mini LED 1000 Nits (double the MBA) that would help fight the reflection outdoors (also goes up to 1600!! In short bursts of HDR) 120hz (double again) I mean, I get back in the old days when laptops were really heavy, but the m2 max 16” MBP is only 1.5 lb’s heavier…I think the only reason to get the air over the pro is price, if you have a choice between either of them with price not being a factor, I can’t see a scenario where anyone would actually choose the MBA… That being said, price is an issue for many people, and many people don’t need the power of the MBP, so I expect a lot of people will love the 15” MBA. I just don’t see it as a realistic alternative to the MBP 16”.

Thanks for this comparison. Especially the first test regarding the heatmanagement was quite revealing. I thought over the last weeks to buy a macbook pro 14 inch 16g of ram and 1tb discspace instead of an mb air 13" with the similar specs. And yes, the pro is more better in terms of display, performance and so on. But the 15 inch model turns this completely to me. Cause it's very portable and the bigger size of the screen, Trackpad, improved sound compared to the 13" model and now the throttleing is much less detectable. This makes the 15" model with 16gb ram 1tb really a very huge temptation to me and not only to me maybe....... To me the idea of a fanless more powerful laptop is now more given with the 15" model.

Hey Alex, thanks for the review. Just got a question - the MacBooks were connected to the powersupply during the performance tests, rights? Wouldn't it make more sense to run them without it? The bigger screen should take more power, so I curious how this translates to power delivery for the cpu. Maybe you could test it in the future? Cheers!

I was waiting for this but tbh the 16” pro is where it’s at (assuming money isn’t the concern). Yea I love how thin the new air design is, it’s beautiful and thin and feels so cool, but the pro has an sd card slot and brighter screen, etc

I use OrbStack instead of Docker desktop. It is a lot faster, lighter and way less resource intensive on macOS.

Very interesting, thank you! 8Gb enough for front-end it is was surprise for me. Happy to heard this. But PRO’s brightness outdoor 😢 not better. I thought i need it for hdr content, but now i’m not sure…

The deal breaker for me, that reviews don't seem to point out since the first M1 MacBook Air, is that they can only have one external display. The Pro 14" and Pro 16" can have mulitple displays. I have the 16" with two external displays and would rather have the 24GB Air 15" for the portability, but need the external display support :(

great video! You got me thinking to switch to new Air from M1 Pro 🤔. Would be great to see the comparison - 16 gb Air vs 16 gb Pro

Even compiling rust works well on the 13in....

Ideally, I'd like to see container videos and parallels running Windows. It's one of those, I'm rarely ever going to use windows, but sometimes I need to test things and I'm not at home. I bought an M2 min instead of the latest and greatest MacBook Pro while I waited for next gen of MBP but this might be an option with that battery life.. and form factor.. it's pretty enticing. MBP starts to lose its value.. I'd have to max out the ram mind you. Great video! Amazing content dude, much appreciated.

Developers usually use external monitor of 27” or 32” to get a real step in being more productive. I would still take the 13” size, more portable, lighter and cheaper.

My only complaint would be that the air doesn’t have 120hz screen/Brighter screen, that’s what’s holding me back from going from a 14pro to a 15 air.

Finally my dream come true (as a developer). Need to start saving.

Great video!!

My rule of thumb take the minimum memory you can handle and double it. You can never have too much memory! This new air is a winner! (Upgraded ram and ssd)

oh gosh to see this both laptops just a bit a way from falling down the round table makes my heart stop to beat xD

8:33 "That GPU is being pegged" This is not a sentence I expected to hear in my lifetime.

I'm still bummed they only let you plug in one external screen, that's the only reason(aside from size) I'm thinking about selling my 13" m2 air to get a 16".

Thank you for the video! 10:53 yes I want to see comparisons between 8Gb and 16 Gb of RAM

currently using the work issued m1 pro 16gb/512gb and it handles all my backend and react ui dev tasks really well, redis client, IntelliJ, Dbeaver client, docker, bunch of chrome tabs and few other tools running and never had any issues. I saw another comparison video recently that shows the m3 air processes faster in all tasks than the m1 pro, so most definitely the m3 air with 16 or 24gb of ram and 512gb of storage will be enough for most of us run of the mill software developers

I dunno if it's a developer's dream. It only supports 1 monitor natively. As a developer, I often need at least 2 screen in addition to the Macbook screen.

i would love to see a video wher u test differences running containers (and stuf that hog memory) on the 8 and 24 gig models

docker without any containers running and already taking 5gb of ram sounds insane. I recommend colima, an alternative to the vm the official docker desktop summons. so much lighter and actually customizable.

2:13 Bombastic Side Eye!!!!

@Alex, After having 13" Air in Midnight color for longer time, do you see any visible paint scuff(apart from fingerprint smudges) on 13" Midnight color ? Nice video Alex, As usual you throw lot of light on the 2 devices during comparison.

Thanks Alex

16 GB or 24gb Macbook Air for machine learning. I don't want the extra weight of the pro. If it takes it longer that's fine. Would be nice if you can run all the models you ran on the MacBook pro versions.

Great video with great advice. I guess, the smaller MacBook Air 13“ is better for travelling, though. What I like to see on your show is a comparison of the Mac Studio M1 Ultra with the Mac Studio M2 Ultra using several applications such as ML, Video /Photo processing, Docker, application builds with XCode, VS Code or IntelliJ, …

Developer here. I had waiting for an Air to come out for years BUT when I bumped the specs to 16GB 512GB then the price went higher than a refurbed 16" M1 Pro. The choice was obvious then.

What I would love to see is a video of a temp monitor being recorded while working with the MAcbook Air ... maybe if you do a live session? This way the temps can be showed in a real life situtation instead just when pushing the machine to its limits.

What app are you using to view the temp on the top dock?

can you run a comparison of Macbook Air 15" with Macbook pro 16" please? Do you think the portability and price of former offsets the performance of latter?

please do a full comparison with 16inch. full benchmarks test

Alex, great content and real world tests as always!! 👍 What would you recommend for someone like me who just has to open dozens and dozens of safari (personal stuff) and chrome (work stuff) tabs - literally, like 50-100 tabs, mixture or RU-vid, web apps and other stuff. I also will likely have Numbers running in the background, some PDFs opened, Contacts, Notes, Apple Mail and from time to time, Photos (managing thousands of family pics and vids), Maps and Apple Music for background music while I work. No Final Cut yet but will want to learn in a year or so! Might I as well be getting a MacBook Pro 16 inch, maybe?! 😅

I'm researching M3 Air tests, notice that the Xcode version of running benchmarks is 14.3.0 Hope we can see another Xcode 15 version test video with basic model and 16GB RAM model!

Great video! To sum it up, if I’m going to run Docker at all, base model 15” MacBook Air is a no no?

Would like to know and follow all of your tests and tools used in this video! Thx!

Which tools do you on throttling testing?

Thanks!

Been using 13" Macbook Pro 2018 for 5 years now... Well time to time I would like to have more space, but in general comparing the dell 15-17" with Macbook 13" then the last one is not that bad at all... Will see, maybe going for 14" with M3

OrbStack is a nice lightweight alternative to docker for mac 😊

Good stuff - next up ... mac Studio please 🤩

What kind of apps are you developing? Just curious. My MacBook Air 13” was getting hot even dragging large files from iCloud Drive to the desktop so I’m trying to understand how people are managing to run Xcode on these lol

How does the MacBook air 15 inch performs once connected to the studio display? And say… with xcode open

can you show whether it is possible to run both programming tools and video editing on 16gb macbook air without throttling?

Alex, how is the midnight blue chassis of your 13” looking after several months?

Midnight Color is super awesome, I have 15 inch 8/512

should u consider using thermal pad in this macbook air 15 to cool it down?

may i know what's the app you use to measure the cpu temps that is appearing on your topbar ?

You know the cool part, at 2:03 you mentioned how it might be difficult to run android on an 8GB machine? Because of the unified SOC and swap space, I have managed to run a full iPhone 14 Pro max + android pixel 7 emulator simultaneously with no issues! The only thing to do different is install the android emulator barebones (ie, without android studio) so it doesn't eat up too much memory!

great video Alex! I have been looking forward to your review! Would you still recommend the 16gb or 24 gb MBA for some MSc level of machine learning? I just have a year of studies left and I am concerned that after finishing my studies the MBP will be a total overkill (considering that I have a laptop from work)

Could you test the Mac Studio m2 ultra for machine learning?

GGetting this MAXED OUT in the fall for school.

Great video Alek! Maladetz

Pls what is the cli tool/command being used to show the cpu/gpu/memory usage?

You running the new MacBook Air on top of the MacBook Pro at Starbucks reminds me of my grandparents having a TV on top of their old console TV as a kid.

I agree entirely with your RAM recommendations! I had the base m1 Air and running Docker was not a good experience. Then I bought the base m1 Pro 14'' and yeah, 16GB does make a significant difference but I'm also hitting its limits by now.. So if you're going to run a lot of virtualization/container locally, go for the 24GB air or 32GB pro.

Any chance we'll be seeing a review on Unreal Engine 5.2 performance on Mac now there's native support, perhaps testing against a windows laptop for comparison?